RAW Dark Matches, Live Notes, ECW Spoilers
Provided by Josh Nason (
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Dark match
- Ricky Ortiz def. Tommy Dreamer: Ortiz looked sloppy with some of his moves and seemed to hurt Dreamer with a bad back suplex. Ortiz gets the pin with a roll-up.
ECW
- The Dirt Sheet with Miz/Morrison opened up the show. This took way too long as they just rambled for about five minutes insulting various wrestlers. Eventually, they got to Finlay and Hornswoggle which inspired them to come out. After beating down Finlay, they chased after Hornswoggle who ran under the ring. This elicited the Boogeyman from under the ring and they ran off Miz/Morrison. Boo. Hiss.
- ECW Champion Matt Hardy def. Mark Henry by DQ. I think this was for the title, but I have no idea. Normal Hardy/Henry match until Jack Swagger came out and took down Hardy for the dq. Henry was not happy and the two stared down as Swagger left the ring area.
- DJ Gabriel w/Alicia def. Paul Burchill w/Katie. This was horrendous for so many reasons. Gabriel won with a reversal into a pin, but what stood out was that Alicia and Katie literally just sat at ringside and did nothing. No crowd prompting, no character, no nothing. Burchill didn't try to connect with the crowd once. I don't get this...I just don't.
- Tag Champs Miz/Morrison def. Finlay/Boogeyman: Morrison got the pin on Finlay as Boogeyman entered the match once to do a quick run-in. He's just that bad. Miz/Morrison are such big stars, it's not even funny. From their dress to their whole personas, they are truly stars.
Dark Main Event
- World Champion John Cena def. Chris Jericho in a street fight. This was all Jericho on offense until Cena hit an FU to get the pin. Jericho was great heel working on Cena's dad at ringside, yelling at him and making it feel personal. Cena did an emotional post-match speech about his '08 and thanking his family and friends who were in attendance. Cena was pretty big all night long.
Additional Live Notes
- Cena's dad was posing for quite a few pictures for at least 10 minutes. Huh? As noted, he got somewhat involved in the dark main event.
- The younger Cena was over huge the entire night. Regardless of whether it's in Cena's backyard or not, people were popping big for him the entire night. Mega-star, man....mega-star.
- The Verizon Wireless Arena can hold just under 10,000 for hockey and roughly 1/4 of the arena was cut due to the giant stage setup. With the floor seats and a claimed sell-out, I'd estimate total attendance at 8500 or so.
- Nothing notable as far as videos go: the usual ads for Wrestlemania 25, the video games and such. I was surprised at how much dead time there was between matches and how little WWE did to entertain during commercials. With such a library, there's no excuse for not being able to put together a ton of two-minute clips.
- The HD stage and video boards make everything seem huge and so important. For those of us that are cynical about the current product, do yourself a favor and see a RAW live. It was nice - at times - to feel like a fan again, you know?
- They need to do a much-better job with letting the crowd know what's going on. I guess Cole and Lawler were discussing the Batista situation, but we had to assume that as they ran the video. It happened again when Cena and Mysterio were shown walking to the ring and a few minutes later, we had a 10-man tag match! When did this happen? Again, letting us know during the commercial breaks would have been nice.
- I don't think people realized the crazy 'fan' Rosa was actually part of the angle. Following her jumping the rail and attacking Melina, there was a weird silence as they went to break. By the way, she stands with the sign up for the entire match. I'm sure the people behind her were thrilled.
- Hacksaw Duggan did a kiss cam segment, right before the Sim Snuka match. This was sad, as was the indifference to Snuka. Give this guy a promo or something.
- Lillian Garcia is very attractive in person. LOVE the boots.
- Cole and Lawler stayed out at ringside for the entire Cena/Jericho dark match. They exchanged pleasantries with Cena Sr. after the match.
- A final note: if you're a fan that reads wrestling sites and obviously knows more about the business than others, don't be 'that guy' at the show that has to talk louder than other people and act superior. You're not...you're just a jerk. Go have fun and stop being so cynical for once.
